We'll need a miracle

[Super Kami Dende]

I'm stuck between not wanting a rushed new expansion with even less content than WoD and waiting a long time for a better expansion.

I think 10-11 months would be my limit. Gives me time to fuck around for a few months now, Quit for a few months to catch up on single-player games/Other MMO's Expansions/Patches etc, then come back for a Few months towards the end in a mad rush to complete everything.

If we managed to get a new expac dropped around (just before or just after) the movie dropped in June with a pre-patch around April/May, I would be Ok.

[Noctifer616]

Well OP seemed to be under the impression that this would be closer to an 18 month raid tier, with a Nov/Dec 2016 expansion release. Which I think is possible, but not likely. Even when considering Blizzard's track record.

Expansion release will most likely coincide with movie release.

I guess we will know more after Gamescom. If they don't announce it there it's going to be Blizzcon, which would put the expansion release at earliest around May next year. We will see, only time will tell.

[Deleted]

It's not happening.

Huge numbers of players have subbed through a year plus content drought three times in a row - ICC, DS and SOO. Blizzard have obviously made plans to make it 4.

Their problem (and anyone who would like to play wow) is that it takes them that long to ship content out and WOD is that awful they might see subs decline to the 2 or 3 million mark before the cycle is over. They've assumed not being terrible. oops.

[Super Kami Dende]

It's not happening.

Huge numbers of players have subbed through a year plus content drought three times in a row - ICC, DS and SOO. Blizzard have obviously made plans to make it 4.

Their problem (and anyone who would like to play wow) is that it takes them that long to ship content out and WOD is that awful they might see subs decline to the 2 or 3 million mark before the cycle is over. They've assumed not being terrible. oops.

Whilst I don't doubt they will lose more subs before the end of WoD, Anything under 5 mil seems doubtful.

[Dawon]

I don't see a 1 year raid tier as a major issue. After my guild got enough from HFC we are just going on break till the next expansion.

The issue is that with such a break, I bet you won't have much of a guild to come back to... what kept my guild together was that we constantly logged in every day and did stuff (that kept bonding us and creating this "I should really be online"-feeling)... When we had a first longer break (when people unsubbed to come back later),,, not even 50% came back... most came to check up but had grown out of the "I must login"-feeling and left raiding completely and now (2 years later) ZERO is playing (including myself).

Point being: Breaks are dangerous for Blizzard, people start realizing there is a life outside WoW and they leave and never comes back... So faster expansions/patches or Blizzard will lose massive amount of players, permanently!

[Deleted]

My cynical self is saying that xpac release will happen around the time WoW movie is in cinema. I'm just hoping it's going to be sooner then that.

[Noctifer616]

The issue is that with such a break, I bet you won't have much of a guild to come back to... what kept my guild together was that we constantly logged in every day and did stuff (that kept bonding us and creating this "I should really be online"-feeling)... When we had a first longer break (when people unsubbed to come back later),,, not even 50% came back... most came to check up but had grown out of the "I must login"-feeling and left raiding completely and now (2 years later) ZERO is playing (including myself).

Point being: Breaks are dangerous for Blizzard, people start realizing there is a life outside WoW and they leave and never comes back... So faster expansions/patches or Blizzard will lose massive amount of players, permanently!

It wasn't an issue for us during the long SoO tier. We just quit at one point and then came back about a month before WoD. Most of us are adults and we don't see major changes in lifestyle (unlike students who can go from school/college to a job). I can understand how it can be an issue for other guild, but we are a casual guild (raid twice a week) with pretty decent progress, so raiding for us is not a massive commitment like for people that are in guilds that raid 4-5 days a week.

[szandos]

They'd be very stupid to not profit on the movie release, so I assume the expansion will be released around the same time as the movie.

[Deleted]

Whilst I don't doubt they will lose more subs before the end of WoD, Anything under 5 mil seems doubtful.

I think they are already sub 5 mil or close to it. I think they'll go lower when 6.2 wears off, which it will any second now.

Most players are casual and there is nothing for them to do.

[Dawon]

It wasn't an issue for us during the long SoO tier. We just quit at one point and then came back about a month before WoD. Most of us are adults and we don't see major changes in lifestyle (unlike students who can go from school/college to a job). I can understand how it can be an issue for other guild, but we are a casual guild (raid twice a week) with pretty decent progress, so raiding for us is not a massive commitment like for people that are in guilds that raid 4-5 days a week.

Hold my fingers crossed for you, and that I eventually find a guild like that myself (raiding after u have a kid is ... semi complicated, to say the least, hehe)!

But in general I mean that Blizzard is digging their own grave if they keep long breaks... as long as u have something to do in-game, you just pay and hang there without thinking... it's when u can take a step back and think for a while when the "shit I should probably quit"-feelings might come...

[Deleted]

The issue is that with such a break, I bet you won't have much of a guild to come back to... what kept my guild together was that we constantly logged in every day and did stuff (that kept bonding us and creating this "I should really be online"-feeling)... When we had a first longer break (when people unsubbed to come back later),,, not even 50% came back... most came to check up but had grown out of the "I must login"-feeling and left raiding completely and now (2 years later) ZERO is playing (including myself).

Point being: Breaks are dangerous for Blizzard, people start realizing there is a life outside WoW and they leave and never comes back... So faster expansions/patches or Blizzard will lose massive amount of players, permanently!

Wows primary selling point for a lot of people has been a persistent online social group, a social group that's been together for years.

....a social group which just got wiped out by the system changes and raid size messing around, plus boredom.

[Lucetia]

Wow, great point. There's never been a Blizzcon without a WoW expansion announcement.

Just in case you are serious, there was 2008, 2010, and 2014 that didn't have an announcement

2005 - Burning Crusade
2006 - SKIPPED
2007 - Wrath of the Lich King
2008 - Some SC / D3 announcements
2009 - Cataclysm / D3 announcements
2010 - D3 announcements
2011 - Mists of Pandaria
2012 - SKIPPED
2013 - Warlords of Draenor
2014 - Overwatch / Hearthstone: Goblins VS Gnomes / Starcraft II: Legacy of the Void
2015 - TBA

In case you were being sarcastic, there's the information for others who want it :P

[Noctifer616]

But in general I mean that Blizzard is digging their own grave if they keep long breaks... as long as u have something to do in-game, you just pay and hang there without thinking... it's when u can take a step back and think for a while when the "shit I should probably quit"-feelings might come...

That's true and that's why they try and aim for year long expansions. However, that's not a goal that can be reached without a ton of effort and good planning. Doing stuff like dropping content already in development or redoing already existing content hurts them a lot when time is a factor.

[Noctifer616]

I wonder how many will come back even if they say there is a new expansion releasing Dec 2015. I am not coming back unless they make it F2P what a waste of money.

I certainly would come back, especially with the tokens making the game free for me outside buying the expansion. That's assuming the quality of the raid content remains on par with WoD.

[Pull My Finger]

May God Help us all.

I think you'll survive. Maybe even find something useful to do with your life.

[Lucetia]

I wonder how many will come back even if they say there is a new expansion releasing Dec 2015. I am not coming back unless they make it F2P what a waste of money.

That's part of why I'm playing now. Only costs me gold to play so I'm not really losing much.

[Pua]

I'm stuck between not wanting a rushed new expansion with even less content than WoD and waiting a long time for a better expansion.

This is largely the problem with the community these days.

You can get lots of content, and in a smaller timeframe than Blizzard releases.

Other studios can pump out content at dramatically faster rates than Blizzard, and on nothing more than a fraction of the available resources. They also manage to do this with less bugs, less issues and (most importantly) less excuses. Warlords of Draenor was the lightest expansion ever created, with the longest development cycle, yet it was still released to beta standard. Their "ready when it's ready" mantra is as dead as the proverbial doornail.

As for the OP, it'll be released in the late spring of next year; possibly early summer. After the BlizzCon announcement, beta will likely wait until after Yuletide and they'll aim to get it out prior to June so that they can avoid the year-long wait and claim it's a huge success. As someone else mentioned (I think Jessicka), the language has already changed from "end-of-expansion content droughts" to "shorter expansions".

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out why.

[Lucetia]

This is largely the problem with the community these days.

You can get lots of content, and in a smaller timeframe than Blizzard releases.

Other studios can pump out content at dramatically faster rates than Blizzard, and on nothing more than a fraction of the available resources. They also manage to do this with less bugs, less issues and (most importantly) less excuses. Warlords of Draenor was the lightest expansion ever created, with the longest development cycle, yet it was still released to beta standard. Their "ready when it's ready" mantra is as dead as the proverbial doornail.

As for the OP, it'll be released in the late spring of next year; possibly early summer. After the BlizzCon announcement, beta will likely wait until after Yuletide and they'll aim to get it out prior to June so that they can avoid the year-long wait and claim it's a huge success. As someone else mentioned (I think Jessicka), the language has already changed from "end-of-expansion content droughts" to "shorter expansions".

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out why.

Going to have to agree with you. The whole "it's ready when it's ready" and it takes us awhile because of resources is rather old. The only thing I can see holding them back would be their engine, but that's me. There are several companies who can add weekly content / updates or even monthly and not have any issues. Blizzard takes months.

For the amount of time it'll take for the expansion to launch I have a strange feeling we'll see the emergence of the "Annual Pass" resurrected and Game Time tokens are excluded from the offer. Meaning you'd have to pay a full year cash.

[Pua]

I think it's going to be a very difficult sell if they do revive the AP.

I depends on what it comes with. A free Diablo 3 expansion and another mount? People will pick it up in spades because, sadly, too many gamers are stupid.

[xStevooo]

You guys know that you can just unsub and do other stuff till the expansion hits? We have summer, there are a bunch of other great games to play and even awesome MMORPGs if it has to be one.

You realise this, and I realise this.
But do you read these forums? You do see that everytime another game is mentioned it just turns into a huge war between this killer, X killer, Y Killer.

WoW has been around SO long and has people so attached to their pixels that the very thought of another game (even though there's tons of titles that blow WoW away) just makes them all upset?

And everyone plays for different reasons, some are addicted to this facebook game, to attached, cant play other games (wow can be played on a potato) real life etc etc.

Personally? I have no idea why people would still play this game, for many reasons. For what you get, in terms of quality, quantity and service wise - I wouldn't play it if it was COMPLETELY free to play.